BANK of America has signed a long-awaited lease to be the anchor tenant in Douglas Durst‘s new, $1 billion One Bryant Park – a 20-year, 1.1 million square-foot deal that’s even more meaningful than the big numbers suggest.

The lease – clinched Friday in a matter-of-fact signing at Durst’s office – represents a milestone in the Durst family’s nearly 40-year campaign to develop the big block bounded by Sixth and Seventh avenues and 42nd and 43rd streets.

Although Durst and the bank signed a non-binding term-sheet agreement last spring, it did not guarantee a final deal.

The site has long been one of Midtown’s most visible eyesores.

The new tower will replace a few notable businesses like Buzzy O’Keeffe’s Laura Belle catering space, but mostly a grungy array of low-rise “taxpayers” and shuttered porn venues.

Durst built and owns the Conde Nast tower at 42nd and Seventh, just west of One Bryant Park.

He said he expects demolition to begin once a few technical and environmental matters are worked out with the Empire State Development Corp.

Durst recently won preliminary approval from the city and state for $650 million in low-interest Liberty Bond financing for the tower.

Durst also just inked a hard-fought deal to buy out the last few holdout landlords on the block.

Expansion-minded Bank of America, which is in the process of acquiring Fleet Boston Financial, will occupy 1.1 million square feet of the tower’s 2.1 million feet. The rent has been reported at $60 a foot.

B of A was represented by Jones Lang LaSalle president Peter Riguardi and the firm’s John Ryan III – who, Riguardi said, “did nothing but shepherd this deal for the past year.”

Riguardi termed it “a symbol that the New York City economy is coming back.”

In a statement, B of A’s New York market president, Carter McClelland,said, “To say we’re excited about our plans to construct a Bank of America tower in the heart of New York would be an understatement.”

The bank will occupy the lower half of the 51-story tower, designed by architects Cook + Fox. Occupancy is planned for early 2008.

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Two banks have nailed down retail outposts in Manhattan’s highest-profile new commercial projects.

First Republic Bank signed on at Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.

Under a deal personally negotiated between Related Urban Development CEO Kenneth Himmel and First Republic CEO James Herbert, the bank took 2,500 square feet on street level facing the circle and 6,000 feet on the mezzanine.

Tucked between stores like Stuart Weitzman and Louis Vuitton, the bank will have entrances both on the sidewalk and on the interior shopping galleria.

Himmel said First Republic will have ATM exclusivity in the project, with one machine in its own branch and five others in different locations inside the project – “each custom-designed by us to coordinate with what’s in the public space around it, whether rosewood, mahogany, stone, or metal.”

Terms were not disclosed. Prime sidewalk-level space at Time Warner Center has asking rents of up to $300.

Meanwhile, a few blocks east, insiders say Steve Roth‘s Vornado has landed Wachovia for the ground-level corner of its Bloomberg Tower, at Third Avenue and 58th Street.

The 5,500 square-foot branch will be diagonally across from another one that Wachovia recently opened on the avenue.